June 2010

June 30, 2010

Anna Chapman, one the 11 suspected Russian spies, arrested in the US. (Pic: Screen grab from a video on YouTube by Russia Today)

The word hokum did come to my mind while reading about the rolling up of a Russian spy network in the US. It is not clear what the intelligence damage potential of the 11 arrested Russians was just as it is not clear what it is that triggered the US action after years and at this particular juncture. I suspect we will never know all the facts.

On the face of it, the story reads like the first rough draft by an amateur spy novelist who could not decide whether he/she wanted to write a serious book or a serious spoof. As if to underscore the unserious nature of the bust, Anna Chapman, a fetching, red-haired suspect, has become the emblem of the case.The reasons for that are quite obvious.

I am sure US investigators have credible information to fold up the network at a time it did. One of the reasons given was that one of the suspects, known as Richard Murphy was planning to leave the country. The Justice Department or the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), which are leading the action, have not said what it is that they found incriminating enough to clap in the eleven.

Such spy networks are not the sole preserve of the Russians. Every major country runs them. What is curious about this case is that it has been broken open at a time when US-Russia relations are on the upswing as manifest in the visit last week by Russia’s President Dmitry Medvedev to Washington. His meeting with President Barack Obama went off very well. And all along Obama knew what was going on behind the scene. Ouch, that ought to have hurt Medvedev.

It is hard to speculate about the larger impact of the arrests on the bilateral relations but rest assured there will be repercussions.

June 29, 2010

As I sit in Delhi and watch the ferment and killings in Kashmir it reminds me how in the last two decades nothing seems to have changed there. It is the same language of violent defiance on the side of the Kashmiris and the same unyielding crackdown by the government. The primal rage has merely changed its host bodies. It has left older malcontents and embedded itself into younger ones. Everything else remains the same.

The state’s young Chief Minister Omar Abdullah, for whom public life is an heirloom (both his father Dr. Farooque Abdullah and grandfather Sheikh Abdullah have ruled the state in the last 60 years with questionable competence)tried to appear calm and in control. On day one of the violence three days ago he may have overdone his earnestness when he was seen dressed in a Gap T-shirt and track pants while getting briefed by his senior officials. I do not know if others notice such trivial details but I am condemned to do it. The first thing I noticed when the pictures came on television was a big and bold Gap on his white T-shirt. To me it conveyed precisely the opposite of earnestness.

The latest problem in the valley is a result of what all problems there have been in recent years—a violent standoff between the Indian security forces and young Kashmiri men who want them out of the state. Some of them overran a police camp prompting the police to open fire and killing three young men. For a state that needs no fuse to ignite passions, the killings were more than enough.

Omar Abdullah, who has also inherited eloquence in family inheritance, said in his appeal for calm this: "This is a battle of wits, battle of ideas, battle of ideologies, in which various anti-national forces and vested interests have come together to create trouble.” All of which is accurate except that it has been all that much longer than it is good for any country. I vaguely recall his father Dr. Abdullah telling me something along the lines nearly two decades ago.

Like many such conflicts around the world, Kashmir is also a self-perpetuating anger machine. It is no longer possible to determine who starts the fight, and it no longer matters. What matters is that the fight goes on.

Sometimes I think human rage is like wavicle (Those who know physics would understand this. It is a combination of wave and particles and is used to describe light) that swirls around the valley always looking for healthy bodies and minds to inhabit. I am looking for an opportunity to go back to Kashmir and see if I can find a wavicle to interview.

June 28, 2010

The just concluded G20 Summit in Toronto turned out to be an occasion for Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and President Barack Obama to form a mutual admiration society. It seems like a natural fit between two professorial pragmatists, albeit it separated by nearly 30 years.

"I can tell you that here at G20, when the prime minister speaks, people listen," Obama said of Dr. Singh. He personally thanked Dr. Singh and Mrs. Gursharan Kaur for their friendship even as he expressed great excitement about his November visit to India."We are also just excited because of the tremendous cultural, as well as political and social and economic examples, that India is providing the world and has in the past," said the US president.

Dr. Singh responded with matching effusion when he said, "You are a role model for millions and millions of people all over the world. Your life history is a history that inspires millions of people everywhere."

I can see why the two men, both deliberate, detail-oriented and scholarly, would get along. While Dr. Singh had a famously upbeat friendship with President George W. Bush, what seemed to be missing was an intellectual dimension. In this case it almost appears as if a seasoned professor has met his most distinguished alumnus.

Let me make an observation for which I have absolutely no basis. That’s why we have blogs. I felt during Dr. Singh’s state visit to the US in November last year that his bearing with Obama had a filial touch to it. There was not anything overt to suggest that but it is one of those things that one feels instinctively.

June 26, 2010

A lot of wildlife has crossed my path during my decades in India but I had a first on Saturday morning around 4.30 a.m. when a baby frog stopped me in my tracks. I practically stepped on it when it leaped about three inches away from my foot. I don’t think it was trying to save itself. It was just being a frog. At that hour baby frogs can hardly be expected to look out for any potential threats.

Not once in my 12 years in the United States has any nonhuman life form crossed my way either by default or design, except once when a deer did. But that happened after I had driven past three signs warning me of a sudden deer crossing. India has no such signs because the signs will have to mention a long list of animals and creatures. Conversely, the country’s planners can have a generic signboard that says ‘Beware of Wildlife Crossing’. Come to think of it that may not help since it is all so random. A cow is likely to be followed by a monkey or a donkey. I have seen a monkey riding a donkey and both crossing a major thoroughfare in Ahmedabad.

Speaking of random, I can never get over how organic traffic is in any part of the country. I am being charitable in describing it as organic because what it really is is nearly homicidal. If they have not run over anyone already, it is not for lack of trying.One must not lose heart because they can do so any moment. During my ten years in the city I used to sincerely believe that the only driver in the country who followed every single rule, including fastidious lane driving, was me. I am going to reassert that claim notwithstanding its impossible provenance.

A cab ride from the international airport to the India International Centre, where I am staying, was once again an unsettling reminder of how in India every road rule is followed mainly in its breach rather than observance. Even someone like me who cut his teeth as a driver in Delhi, I cannot come to terms with how utterly lawless the citizenry is on the road.

No amount of flyovers and six lane expressways are going to prettify the ugliness that is manifest in driving. Every driver always straddles lanes as if it is mandated by law. No one ever moves or waits short of being hit. The simple rule is once your foot is on the accelerator it must not be taken off unless you have reached your destination or run over someone or hit something, whichever comes first. Not every driver does that of course. Some of them don’t even stop after reaching their destination or hitting something/someone. I exaggerate but I am sure you get my point.

Here is a city that is preparing for the 2010 Commonwealth Games and is supposed to transform its motorists, scooterists, bikers and rickshaw drivers and all those on any kind of wheels from hordes of Huns into at least nominally civilized drivers in the next 100 days. That goal is probably achievable to some degree in 100 years, provided anyone survives the daily vehicular manslaughter until 2110.

Coming back to the baby frog, it managed to find a little puddle by the roadside Saturday morning. I am not sure if it will survive too much longer if attempts to do what its more seasoned fellow wild life does—cross the road at will.

June 24, 2010

A quarter century ago, on June 24 I was in Bombay getting frenzied messages from the Associated Press (AP) bureau in New Delhi to find as much information as I could related to the mid-air crash of Air India flight 182 from Montreal, Canada, to New Delhi a day earlier. All of its 329 passengers were killed in what soon turned out to be the worst case of aviation terrorism in those days.

In the immediate aftermath of the attack the media focus was not on whether Canada was treating the case with the urgency it so obviously deserved. As it turned out Canada did not.

Hence it is remarkable that 25 years after the bombing of the flight by Sikh separatists, known as Khalistanis, Canada’s Prime Minister Stephen Harper has offered a formal apology and clearly accepted blame for what he called "institutional failings."

"We are sorry... your pain is our pain... as you grieve so we grieve," Harper told the victim families at a memorial service in Toronto yesterday.

"This was not act of foreign violence. This atrocity was conceived in Canada, executed in Canada by Canadian citizens and its victims were themselves mostly citizens of Canada," Harper said but did not directly name the Khalistanis. "It was evil, perpetrated by cowards, despicable, senseless and vicious," he said.

Last week an official Canadian report concluded that the bombing was a result of "a cascading series of errors" by Canada. "I stand before you to offer on behalf of the government of Canada and all Canadians, an apology for the institutional failings of 25 years ago and the treatment of the victims' families," the prime minister said.

One of the most troublesome features of the tragedy was that the bombing was never fully treated as a Canadian tragedy since almost all victims were Indian-Canadians. Harper seemed to respond to that as well when he said, "Canadians who sadly didn't at first accept that the outrage was made in Canada accept it now. (But) we wish this realization had gained common acceptance earlier."

My reporting on the Air India bombing was mainly from the standpoint of investigations taking place in Bombay because the city then was the center of aviation knowledge base. If I remember it accurately the wreckage of the aircraft was also brought to the city.

P.S.: Since there has been a doubling in the number of people who read this blog, it is only fair that I mention that I will miss posting anything tomorrow. I will be in transit to India.

June 23, 2010

If fitting punishment for his unvarnished utterances is the eventual goal of President Barack Obama, then he should require that General Stanley McChrystal continue to serve in Afghanistan until his hubris feels whipped and dragged like a Bushkashi goat. After all what could be greater punishment than being in Afghanistan by the side of President Hamid Karzai?

As Obama prepares to meet his restive general in charge of his most important war today in the Oval Office, the media is agog with what the president might do with McChrystal. The easiest and most obvious way is to fire him right in the doorway. In a perverse sort of way the tough-talking military man might even appreciate an abrupt, unceremonious sack. If his profile in Rolling Stone is any measure of the man, the general comes across as someone profoundly uncomfortable with the fineries of life.

So here is one scenario.

At 9 a.m. the main door to the Oval Office is held ajar by one of the presidential aides who announces, “Mr. President, General McChrystal is here.”

Obama is sitting in his chair, with his feet on the ornate desk wearing an air of expansiveness. He waits for a few seconds to subtly let it be known who the boss is. He then saunters across to the main door, which his presidential aide opens some more. This action is possibly not protocol as the president is unlikely to receive his guests at the door; and certainly not one who has just kicked him in his pants. So both the aide as well the general are somewhat intrigued.

“General,” says Obama half in greeting, half in disapproval.

There is a slight deferential nod from McChrystal. “Mr. President.”

“Well, you are fired. There is no need to come in,” Obama says and walks back to his desk. No handshakes, no glowing references to his service, nothing. Somewhat stung, McChrystal recovers his composure and leaves. The aide picks up his/her jaw from the floor and fits it back in position.

That is one Hollywood scenario.

The more likely real world scenario could go something like this. The general is shown into the office where the president greets him without any apparent rancor. Pleasantries are gone through. A quick briefing about the latest Afghan situation is done. Then the general begins with a personal, somewhat awkward apology. He is contrite without being cringeworthy. He explains away his and his aides’ comments in Rolling Stone as an inexcusable case of poor judgment and then offers his resignation.

Obama expresses his extreme displeasure in unambiguous terms. He also points out how he has done everything that the general had expected him to do in terms of more troop deployment. He also talks about the long-term strategic importance of a stable Afghanistan and the role McChrystal can play in the short-term. While all this is being said Obama’s tone makes it clear that there is going to be an undercurrent of constant scrutiny of the general through the remainder of his tenure.

As a politician Obama should know that there is greater advantage in keeping alive a contrite, guilt-ridden detractor. A gracious reprimand can go a long way in making an utterly grateful detractor keep doing your bid.

June 22, 2010

There is no surprise that Faisal Shahzad, the man behind the failed Times Square car bombing, has not just pleaded guilty to all 10 counts but used his day in court to assert the righteousness of his cause. Quite like key Mumbai terror plotter David Coleman Headley in Chicago, Shahzad too comes across as an unsentimental professional untroubled by the implications of his actions.

“I want to plead guilty, and I’m going to plead guilty 100 times over,” he said, “because until the hour the U.S. pulls its forces from Iraq and Afghanistan, and stops the drone strikes in Somalia and Yemen and in Pakistan, and stops the occupation of Muslim lands, and stops killing the Muslims, and stops reporting the Muslims to its government, we will be attacking U.S., and I plead guilty to that.”

However misplaced, a tone of utter righteousness runs through Shahzad’s reported statement. It tells me that young men like Shahzad—and there ought to be a large number of them—consider their cause to be larger than self. Whether that cause is genuine, fake or somewhere in between is a matter of debate. What is not a matter of debate is that the pioneers and perpetrators of the ideology of selective misanthropy in the Islamic world are able to harvest young men like Shahzad with relative ease.

I am struck by how sharply different Shahzad is compared to Mohammad Ajmal Amir Kasab, the convicted lone surviving gunman of the November 26, 2008, Mumbai attacks. In fact, Kasab is a complete antithesis of Shahzad in terms of their social standing within Pakistan’s acutely class conscious society. If both Shahzad and Kasab, coming from two opposite ends of the societal spectrum, can be persuaded about the righteousness of their cause, then something is fundamentally wrong with the turn civilization has taken in that part of the world.

Quite predictably, Shahzad called himself not just a “soldier” but a “Muslim soldier” to further refine his identity which in his mind befits the cause he is espousing. Kasab, on the other hand, was all over the place while describing himself, betraying way less ideological investment in what he did. However, when he left the shores of Karachi I am sure it was drilled into his brain how posthumous glory awaited him.

Having reported on and observed this problem for a long time, I am not optimistic about finding an enduring solution.

June 21, 2010

She says it was sexual harassment. He says it was a “flirtatious” and “consensual” relationship. That’s what the high profile controversy involving former Penguin Canada boss David Davidar and his colleague Lisa Rundle has come down to. Here is an IANS story on the matter.

Toronto/New Delhi, June 21 (IANS) India-born David Davidar, former CEO of Penguin-Canada, who was forced to leave his job early this month following allegations of sexual harassment, reportedly "had a consensual flirtatious relationship that grew out of a close friendship with a colleague," said a statement released by Davidar's counsel from Toronto Monday.

"David Davidar has not sexually harassed anyone and has not assaulted anyone... He deeply regrets the hurt this has caused his wife," the statement by Peter A. Downard of Fasken Martineau DuMoulin LLP, a leading Toronto-based law firm that has been engaged as litigation counsel on behalf of Davidar said.

Explaining the nature of the relationship, Downard said, "Commencing in late 2005, Davidar and Lisa Rundle (the former director of digital publishing and foreign rights at Penguin-Canada) had offices next to each other at Penguin. They became friends. At work, Davidar and Ms Rundle spent significant time in each other's offices. At Rundle's invitation, Davidar played tennis with her at her tennis club. They went to a tennis tournament together. They attended the theatre together. They had lunches in restaurant together. Davidar came to think of Rundle as his closest friend and confidante at work."

In 2007, their friendship became flirtatious, the statement said. "Davidar suggested to Rundle that their relationship become more romantic. Rundle informed Davidar that she had more than one suitor - Davidar amongst them - and that it would be important to her that any such relationship not be secret. Davidar accepted the situation and the flirtatious relationship continued. Davidar wrote Rundle personal emails, read poetry to her and they exchanged gifts from time to time. Throughout this friendship, Davidar would ask Rundle if she liked the attention he was paying her and she indicated she did," the statement said.

Davidar's counsel said "the former Penguin-Canada CEO and Davidar kissed on two occasions".

"The first was in Rundle's room during the October 2008 Frankfurt Book Fair referred to in Rundle's claim. However, contrary to Rundle's claim, Davidar did not bully his way into her room nor did he force himself upon her," the statement read.

Davidar and Rundle spent two days in Frankfurt. Following the Frankfurt trip, Davidar travelled to India on business. "While Davidar was there (in India), his father became critically ill. Davidar extended his trip to be with his father in his final days. While away, Rundle sent an email to Davidar expressing her concerns and extending 'her best thoughts'," the statement claimed.

Davidar returned to Toronto after his father's funeral before the Christmas of 2009.

Later in January 2010, Rundle requested a pay increase. "Davidar reminded her that her salaries at Penguin were frozen. However, he offered her the role of director of digital publishing and foreign rights. This justified a pay increase of $10,000," Downard's statement said.

In February 2010, Davidar "took stock of his life", saddened by his father's death.

"He felt that he could no longer continue his personal friendship with Rundle," the statement said.

He told Rundle that "their relationship should be confined to business".

Davidar's counsel said "throughout Rundle's employment with Penguin from 2005 to 2010, she was treated fairly, receiving regular promotions, salary increases and successful assessment. Davidar was at pains to remind her from time to time that no matter what happened between them on the personal front, Rundle's professional career with Penguin would never suffer." The statement ended by saying "David Davidar is happily married. He deeply regrets the trouble that has been visited on his wife in recent days. He apologizes to her."

June 20, 2010

It seems today is Father’s Day. It is the day, at least in the US, when fathers get feted for being fathers.

The day is supposed to be important enough for President Barack Obama to issue a proclamation that begins: “From the first moments of life, the bond forged between a father and a child is sacred. Whether patching scraped knees or helping with homework, dads bring joy, instill values, and introduce wonders into the lives of their children. Father's Day is a special time to honor the men who raised us, and to thank them for their selfless dedication and love.”

Of course, I believe fathers are largely irrelevant. The best that a father can/should do for his children is not be an obstruction. There is certainly no need to honor fathers other than saying, “Yeah dad, t’s up?” and moving on. Some seven years ago I had written a piece about my father that was very well received by a large number of readers. Unfortunately, I cannot find a copy but here is an abridged reproduction extracted from scraps of memory as well as some fresh writing. It is not in any particular order.

If I were my father I would have two more years to live. He died at 44, after his fourth heart attack. It was in 1970. He was born with mitral stenosis, which means there was a narrowing of the the valve that allows the blood to flow from the left atrium to the left ventricle. This I found out decades after his death. When he died the cause was simply death. He died of death.

For as long as I remember I saw my father only as a half paralyzed figure. The left half of his body was practically useless. In fact, as a child I thought it was normal for all fathers to lean on a cane and hobble along. I thought unlike the fathers of other children mine was special. He was not; he was merely damaged.

His bamboo cane, floppy boots and somewhat ill-fitting trousers all reminded me of a comic yet melancholic cinema icon—Charlie Chaplin. I know for a fact that my father was a brilliant story teller and had a terrific sense of humor. I vaguely remember relatives gathering around Manharray to hear him narrate all kinds of funny stories.

A voracious reader of everything that he could lay his hands on and a possessor of fine penmanship, I think my father was an unfulfilled writer. Without the burden of four children and a poorly paid job, I think he would have chosen writing as a profession. It is possible that some of my passion for reading and writing comes from him.

Being his fourth and last child, I have often marveled at and been troubled by how a man, who had four heart attacks and a damaged heart valve, managed to father four children. I can understand the first two but the last two were completely uncalled for. There was no need for me, for instance. I have told my mother this many times much to her chagrin.

One memory that endures even today is my father’s ability to wave his cane at a city transport bus plying the route to our home and compel the driver to make an unscheduled halt for him. It was an excusable misuse of his handicap in an era where pressures on life were much less.

His cane had become a virtual limb for him. This particular cane was so overused that the end that touched the ground was chewed up by the uneven roads that he had to often walk on. A rubber cushion did help but even that was not meant for the kind of intensive use that my father put it to.

I remember the day he died (I think it was May 14, 1970) was severely hot. The kind of day where the dirty yellow sunlight distorts everything. After his body was released from the hospital, he was dressed up in a striking white dhoti and kept in state (if I can call it that) on the bare terrazzo floor of my uncle’s house. That was the tradition. His eyes were partially open and appeared jaundice yellow. There were occasional, but barely audible sobs from my mother, sitting about ten feet away leaning against a wall. A couple of feet away from her was my father’s cane, with the lower end chewed up.

For a brief moment I felt my father hook the back of my shirt collar with his cane quite like Chaplin’s tramp and pull me towards him.

June 19, 2010

There is something exhilarating about serendipity. What is special about serendipity is that when one finds something unintentionally or when one is not looking for it the sense of unadulterated joy seems inordinately more than it would ordinarily have been.

This morning while going through my usual rounds of news and current affairs sites, I chanced upon pictures of Czech model Veronica Varekova. You might legitimately wonder what sites might those be that offer her pictures. Trust me, there are many. Looking at her—and there is no looking away from her—Oscar Wilde’s take on beauty sprung out from an obscure recess of my brain.

“Beauty is a form of genius--is higher, indeed, than genius, as it needs no explanation,” Wilde wrote. Certainly, Varekova will need no explanation for quite sometime. At a certain point in her life she might need explanation and much more as demanded by the vagaries of age.

The serendipitous aspect of this little post is that while searching for some more information about Varekova I inevitably ended up on Wikipedia where the entry about her mentions her birthday to be June 19, which is today. And today also happens to be my daughter Hayaa’s birthday. From Veronica to Hayaa via Wilde does seem like quite a leap.

I am sure Veronica would understand that I have used my daughter’s picture instead of her. Come to think of it even my daughter may not need explanation for quite sometime.

P.S.: This short post is so typical of how my mind functions, from leap to leap but with no identifiable destination.